Tom Nuttall
@tom_nuttall
Berlin bureau chief (again), the Economist. Formerly of Los Angeles, Brussels and London. Polycrisis veteran, music nut.
brief update: I'm now back in Berlin full-time. What Germany stories should the Economist cover? Send me your ideas/invite me to your events/suggest meeting for coffee etc. DMs open
The contours of Germany’s debate over Gaza—angry protests, university sit-ins, accusations that the government is abetting war crimes—resemble those elsewhere. But in the country responsible for the murder of 6m Jews, it carries extra weight economist.com/europe/2025/07…
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
Together, the EU and the US are a market of 800 million people. And nearly 44 percent of global GDP. It’s the biggest trade deal ever ↓
Three-quarters of the world’s countries already recognize a yet non-existent Palestinian state. So now another one will. I fail to see how this will change anything for Palestinians and Israelis. I mean by all means, I also want there to be a Palestinian state, but who cares?
"The 15 per cent minimum tariff would include [...] existing duties, so Brussels views the deal as cementing the status quo. Tariffs on cars, which are currently 27.5 per cent, would therefore fall to 15 per cent." ft.com/content/460b77…
There is no small number of European countries, including the one I'm sitting in, where the job of those leaders trying to maintain public backing for military and other aid to Ukraine just got much harder. ft.com/content/21cf3d…
The slump in German exports to China over the past couple of years is actually bigger, relative to German GDP, than the slump in German exports to the US during the great financial crisis 3/
After Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg has become the second German state to make recognition of Israel's right to exist a condition of naturalisation. welt.de/politik/deutsc…
I regret to inform you that German politics is confronting another plagiarism scandal
In light of UK-France "one in, one out" talks, worth noting that a comparable arrangement was at the heart of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal - and in practice it proved largely unworkable.
At the Ukraine conference in Rome @_FriedrichMerz has publicly called out Slovakia's PM Robert Fico, who is the only EU leader blocking the "massive sanctions" on Russia promised by Merz & Macron when they visited Kyiv almost two months ago.
Rom: @Bundeskanzler Merz wendet sich an den slowakischen Regierungschef Fico, der als einiger EU-Leader die neuen Sanktionen gegen Russland blockiert: „I urgely ask Slovakia and its Prime Minister to give up the resistance and to make the way free for package number 18.“
A row over whether AfD MPs should be allowed to join the Bundestag's official football team may look trivial. But it encapsulates a bigger debate over the sustainability of Germany's anti-AfD "firewall". My latest piece 🔽 economist.com/europe/2025/07…
Can't shake the feeling that the annual Sommerfreibad-Diskurs is somehow the Key to all German Mythologies...could become the lifetime work of some German Casaubon
SPD support falls to 13% in new Infratest poll tagesschau.de/inland/deutsch…
A bracing read on the homeland from my colleagues: "Sir Keir may sink further. His government appears to have lost confidence among investors, and his chancellor’s credibility has vaporised…if the malaise continues it may be Mr Farage who rides to power." economist.com/leaders/2025/0…
